Spuffy Drabbles
by Bone Dry
Summary: Some old Spuffy drabbles that I think were LJ prompts at one point, posted here because why not. Set mid-s6. Kind of dark.
1. Smoke

_A/N: A couple old LJ drabbles I found on my laptop and I thought I'd post here for posterity's sake._

 **\- Smoke -**

Smoke trailed lazily from the cigarette in his hand, snaked its way up the ceiling and along the walls and disappeared into the air. It was beautiful, and it wasn't.

He held it out to her, and she took it for no reason, rolled it over in her fingers. She'd never taken it before, never had the impulse.

Slowly, she raised it to her lips, and she inhaled. She'd never done that before either.

She coughed. It tasted bitter and gross and not quite familiar in her mouth, and when she exhaled she smelled the smoke, and she felt light-headed. Everything smelled like smoke. Everything tasted like smoke and cigarettes, and it tasted like him and like her and like the air and like everything she wasn't.

He took the cigarette back, and she could hear it crackle as he puffed.

She swallowed, craving it back. She could taste it on her lips, and it was wrong, but she didn't care. She wanted it back, even as he flicked it away and it disappeared into the mass of rugs and dust. She looked for it where it landed, but she didn't find it.

"Surprised you took it," he said.

She looked at him, and she knew he'd watched her watch the cigarette, but she said nothing, her gaze slipping back down to center on nothing in particular.

"I can light another if you want," he continued, lifting the pack to waggle it in front of her face.

"No," she said. And she didn't. This time she turned to eliminate him fully from her sight, even though she could feel him against her side, the weird not-quite-room temperature of his skin. She could taste the cigarette on her lips, and she could taste him, or maybe she just remembered him somewhere knotted and rolling behind her teeth.

Somewhere, floating just below the surface, some part of her knew she should go, that she shouldn't be here, that the taste was wrong, that he was wrong, that everything was wrong, but she didn't care. She wouldn't leave, didn't want to go, because there was something half like belonging there on the floor, tangled up in all the bedding.

He touched her with two fingers, feather-light down her jaw, and she shivered. Down her face, down her neck. Down, down, down. So soft it was frightening.

She turned back to him, and she found him leaning over her, propped on an elbow. He smelled like booze and dirt and cigarettes, like the mouthwash he might've used two or three seconds before she got there, and she didn't know what she felt as he stared at her, and as he stared through her. She didn't know what he felt, though maybe she could've guessed, and maybe it might've scared her if she did.

She took his hand and pulled it off her, held it there in the inches between them. A question dissolved before she could voice it, so she fiddled with one of his rings instead, asked him a different one, "How do you smoke if you don't have to breathe?"

He grinned at her, twitched his fingers in her grip. "Same reason I eat chicken wings and Weetabix, luv. 'Have to's got nothing to do with it."

She dropped his hand and rolled onto her back, because it irritated her, something about the answer or maybe it was just something in his face. That weird bond of theirs since she'd died the second time, growing less and less between the lines, breaching the surface.

And as she laid there he reached in the box and pulled out another cigarette, grabbed the old Bic from under a blanket and lit it up, tossed the box away. It landed on a pile of rumpled clothes. Theirs, all mixed together.

For a second she watched him smoke, the lazy way he dropped his hand, watched the smoke puff from his nose and the butt of the stick, roll up to the ceiling.

She watched until she couldn't do it anymore, and she closed her eyes.


	2. Ash

**\- Ash -**

Her stake slipped from her fingers as she fell, and she hit the ground hard. She glanced after it, but it had been swallowed by the grass, and then the vamp was on her, and his boot connected with her stomach.

Pain ripped through her midsection, consuming her, blinding her. She tasted blood and dirt and ash, and she curled inward as he hit her again and again and again, and already it was dulling, and soon she felt nothing. She saw nothing, though her eyes were open, and she wondered if this was what was to be dying, even though she'd died so many times already and she thought maybe by now she should know.

Distantly, she knew she should stop him, but she felt so far away from herself, and then his boot caught her chin, and lightning exploded through her skull, and for that moment she knew nothing.

That moment passed, and he pulled her up by the collar and pressed his knee to her stomach. She was pinned, and she would die, and he would kill her, and yet she did nothing, because she wanted it. She wanted to die, to fall back into Nothing, capital N. She'd been resurrected twice for this, and if cruelty was the devil, then surely this was Hell.

She closed her eyes as he leaned forward, and she could hear his growl just below her ear. She wondered if he knew who she was, and if it would matter if he did. She wondered if she still knew who she was, and why it didn't seem to matter that she didn't.

And, then, suddenly, he had dropped her, and he was gone. He had disappeared, disintegrated, and she was lying there, cold and confused. When she opened her eyes, all she saw was stars and a half moon and the corner of a tree, but not him, because he was gone, and she was not.

Again.

"Slayer."

Thumping of feet, and then he was in her vision. He looked frightened, and she knew it was for her, just as she knew that he had saved her, and it struck her as funny, though she didn't know why, and she didn't laugh.

"Buffy," he changed his name for her, falling to his knees as he reached for her. "Are you alright?"

She drew back from him, then abruptly shoved herself upright, to glare at him on his level. "I'm fine," she growled. And maybe it was true.

He let his hand fall, but still he studied her, and she could feel her skin burn under his gaze. Suddenly she was ashamed, and she hated herself, though she wasn't sure if it was because of what had so nearly happened or because he had been there to witness it.

She looked away, because she couldn't look at him, and then she forced herself to her feet. Fire roared through her body, and suddenly she realized how much she ached and pulsed and bled. She could still taste the blood and the dirt and the ash, and she could smell it too, but she revealed nothing. She began to walk away, and she didn't look back.

"Hold up." More muted footfalls, and then he was in front of her. "That was fine?"

She stopped, her gaze hard as she regarded him. "Yes," she said. She just wanted him to go away.

"Buffy..." his voice trailed off. Was there a speech he'd had when he'd dreamed of her, when he'd saved her all those nights?

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing." He turned, but he came back just as quickly, and he reached for her, but didn't touch her. "It's just, you and I, we're not..."

"So different?" Acidly.

"Yes, no, I..." he exhaled hard, even though vampires don't breathe. "You don't have to fight me."

She said nothing. She hated him, and she hated herself.

"It's just...not everything has to be such a bloody struggle."

She stared at him. She wanted to die, and she wanted to live, and she wanted to feel the fire again, because she was cold, and all she could taste was the blood and the dirt and the ash and the death.

"Do you still save me?" she asked, and she didn't know why. She hadn't meant to say it. She didn't even remember thinking it.

"What?" if he'd been trying to think of what to say, she'd thrown him off the rails, but she didn't say it again, because she'd grabbed his shirt. She pulled him down to her, and then their lips were crashing together, and she felt heat scorching through the cold.

She hated him as he touched her, and she hated herself as she drew him closer, but she didn't care, because it didn't matter, because they were broken, and she had forgotten who she was supposed to be.


	3. Cinders

_A/N: It occurred to me I forgot to actually post this last one... like four months ago. But, well, better late than never?_

 **\- Cinders -**

It was hot.

It was hot, and she was sweating, and it was night but the crypt was hot, and she knew she wanted to go underground, to where it would surely be cooler, but it seemed so much easier to lie there on the warm concrete slab and to close her eyes and to feel herself sweat.

"Pet."

She opened one eye, then the other. She could see her outfit, a bright, orange pool on the floor, and from here it looked radioactive, and she couldn't believe that she had been wearing it.

"Pet."

Slowly, she turned to look at him. The heat had made him hot, and he was sweating too, even though she didn't know how he could. She wished he would get away from her, because it was just too hot, and he was just too hot, and she would've sold her soul for air conditioning and a glass of iced water.

He was smiling at her, and she didn't know why until she looked up a little, and she saw that he was wearing her hat. She stared at it for a beat, into the cow's little felt eyes, and then she looked down again, and he was still smiling at her. She stared at him, and then she was smiling too, and she was laughing.

She didn't know why, didn't know what was so funny, but it didn't matter, because she was just so tired and hot, and she smelled like grease and fast food, and it was all just so ridiculous.

"God, it's hot," he said.

"You noticed?" she said. Her voice sounded breathy, because it was just too hot to breathe or to talk or to laugh.

"Sod all, what is with this hat?" he took it off his head, then held it between them. "Why does it have a tail?"

"I don't know," she said.

"You wear this all day?"

"Yes," she said, and she laughed again.

He laughed too, then placed it on his chest.

She stared at it, then plucked it off, and she sent it flying across the crypt, bouncing off a wall. She didn't watch where it landed, because she didn't care, and she just couldn't look at it anymore.

"I was just starting to get fond of it," he said.

She laughed again, then settled back on his arm and the hot concrete slab, stared up at the ceiling. "What're we doing?" she asked.

"I dunno," he said. "Does it matter?"

She exhaled. "No," she closed her eyes. "No, it doesn't matter." She felt herself sweat, and she laid one of her hands against her chest. She wanted to sleep, but she doubted she could.

"It's probably cooler downstairs," he said.

She felt him touch her arm, but she didn't open her eyes. "It probably is," she said.

"Feel up to moving?"

She grunted, "Would it be hard?"

"Won't know till we try."

"You first," she pressed two fingers against his chest.

"Maybe it's not so hot."

She sighed. She could feel herself melting into the concrete, but she couldn't bring herself to move, because it was too hot to move, and it was too hot to stay, but it didn't seem to matter. She didn't know what the hell they were doing, but whatever it was, she just wanted to do it forever, because it was just too hot to do anything else.

"Yeah," she said. "Maybe it's not so hot."

She was lying, but that didn't seem to matter either.


End file.
